Year of the Dog

by Henry Chang

  “The parents . . . what happened?” He scanned the room for his clothes, didn’t see them anywhere.

  “Jack,” Alex said quietly, “ the doctor says you need to rest.”

  He closed his eyes, saw the yowling jaws of the pit bull, the flash fire from the muzzle of the Colt, the baseball bat arcing through the light.

  “Yeah, rest,” he said.

  “There was a second call. Some other detectives involved—”

  Major Case, he guessed, handling the shooting. He wondered where his gun was, figured Wong would’ve taken it per the officer-involved shooting rules, for tests. Forensics and Internal Affairs.

  “But Jack, the doctor wants to keep you another night, for observation. You’ve got a chest wound, too.”

  Chest wound? Jack didn’t understand, thought the meds had affected his hearing. A dog chewed my arm. What chest wound? He brought his hand up over his heart, felt the layer of gauze and tape there.

  Abruptly, the doctor, a haggard face and balding head in a white coat, poked his face past the vinyl curtain.

  “Awake, great,” he said, “ Detective, how’re you feeling?”

  “Like crap,” Jack answered, wondering about the pinching sensation in his chest.

  “That’s to be expected,” the doctor said. “We’re keeping you overnight, running rabies tests. And because of the chest wound, as a precaution.”

  Jack took a slow, deep, breath, felt something pulling in his left lung area.

  The doctor continued, “Luckily, it was a through-and-through. Small caliber, in and out of your pectoral, just grazed the breastplate.”

  “Breathing feels tight,” Jack said.

  The doctor gave Alex a reassuring glance. “You’re feeling the stitches,” he said to Jack. “And you’re lucky, Detective. If you’d had your torso twisted another inch that way, the bullet would have pierced your heart.”

  The punk-ass, firing wildly at him in the dark. He’d been hit and hadn’t even realized it. He remembered instead the screaming pain of the dog’s bite. He suddenly worried that the stitches in his chest would pop.

  “So take it easy,” the doctor continued, “Your commanding officer tells me it’s the second time you’ve been wounded within three months.”

  Second time. He hadn’t thought about the first shootout in Brooklyn, with the tall Chinese tong enforcer, Golo, who was in a Potter’s Field now. He’d filed it away in the back of his mind, fallout from his tour in the Fifth Precinct.

  The doctor looked for focus in Jack’s eyes. “So,” he continued, “I believe the department’s got you scheduled for mandatory leave.”

  “Leave?” Jack asked, casting an unhappy look at Alex.

  “Jack,” she said, “it’s for your own good. A procedural thing.” She paused before adding “There’s probably going to be a psych evaluation also. You’ll be out for a while.”

  “Leave,” Jack repeated softly to himself, his mind drifting. “It’s Christmas Day,” he suddenly remembered, looking at Alex, “and you’re here.”

  “Well, Chloe’s at my parents, until dinner. I was only going to SoHo, to shop a little. No biggie. Just wanted to make sure you were okay.” She patted his hand.

  There was a quiet moment, then the doctor said, “The nurse will be in shortly. You need to rest. And I’ll look in on you in the afternoon.”

  “Thanks, Doc,” Jack said, his mind still processing information. Then the phone rang somewhere close, his ring tone. Alex took his cell phone out of a closet in the side of the room. He caught a glimpse of his clothes inside as she handed it to him. He flipped the phone open, saw a number he didn’t recognize, then heard P.O. Wong’s tired voice.

  “We found the body,” he said.

  God’s General Gourd

  She followed the wide ruts of truck tire tracks in the snow, turning the corner off Bayard.

  In the Mulberry Street spirit shop, Bo checked the time, saw she still had an hour before her shift at the New Canton. She had wanted to pick up a tea, and a bao, a bun, along the way.

  The shop smelled of jasmine and incense. There were bamboo umbrellas, ceramic gods and goddesses, lacquered dragons and Buddhas. She saw beaded bracelets, necklaces with Taoist trigrams, embroidered silk purses in all colors. As she searched, she remembered the words cancer and radiation, and wondered what talisman could ward off pain. Past a wall of cemetery items, candles and death money, there were strands of mini-temples and bot gwa talismans, amulets, and charm bracelets. She needed a different talisman. If mercy wasn’t enough, she’d have to switch from the goddess Kuan Yin to a stronger, more masculine god. Naturally, she came upon Kwan Kung, General Kwan, God of War. Computer-etched onto the gold-plated metal card, Kwan Kung with his flowing black beard, his battle ax, and his fierce scowl was the one.

  There was, after all, a war going on in Sai Go’s body.

  Bo also noticed the display rack of Good Luck Jade. She chose a solitary gourd of translucent pale jade, about the size of a nickel, hanging off a long strand of red, lucky thread. The gourd of the Shaolin monks, who used it to trap evil inside.

  She paid for the items, carefully placing Sai Go’s prescription and note inside the bag. At the door, she hesitated, mouthing a silent prayer before stepping back into the cold gray Chinatown morning.

  Betting Against Time

  The streets were frozen and the wind chill slashed at his bones.

  He’d come back from the gambling trip with a gaunt face. He’d eaten heartily at the buffet tables whenever he found his appetite, but still he’d lost seven pounds.

  As a matter of habit, Sai Go drifted in the direction of the OTB, but caught himself on the Bowery and turned toward the old park on Mulberry, which he knew would be desolate this time of year.

  The west end of the park was where the old men usually gathered, in the open court or under the tall trees that circled an open pavilion. The stone structure had a gabled slate roof with eaves supported by simple ionic columns and arches. The pavilion was accessed by a rise of a dozen steps to an open expanse of tiled floor.

  Sai Go remembered taking bets there in his earlier years. Now the space was deserted except for an occasional encampment of the homeless. Fronting the pavilion was an open court, in the middle of which stood a tall flagpole that looked like a tall white cross. The American flag was at the top, then a Parks Department flag and a New York City flag at quarter-mast, all drooping and dangling against the cold windless sky. Under the flags was an arrangement of tables and benches under the bare maples and walnuts, trees that were scarred not only by the extremes of the seasons, but by hacks and gouges from the knives and tools of the men who gathered there in good weather to play Chinese chess and checkers. Sometimes crowds three-deep surrounded a good match, all men, smoking cigarettes and swapping tales and memories.

  Memories.

  He was drawing on memories now, reviewing parts of the life that had brought him to this end. Sitting alone, on the bench under the naked trees, he clutched the Buddhist mercy talisman, and contemplated the rest of his dying days.

  Blanket Party . . .

  Wong had worked along with the two extra uniforms who’d stayed behind, canvassing in the darkness, checking the adjacent buildings.

  They searched the maintenance areas: a New York City Housing Authority gardener’s shed, and a fenced-in lot for dumpsters and garbage bins. They checked the cages where the porters and mechanics stored supplies, and the loading docks where they staged the project’s garbage for pickup.

  Nothing.

  Just the cops freezing their asses off on Christmas morning, slogging through the graveyard run.

  The man with the wounded leg had clammed up. EMS had taken him to Beth Israel Emergency, together with his home-boy with the hole in his chest.

  Wong continued diligently through the night, the falling snow covering everything, wiping out any track or trail. Toward dawn he was advised via radio that a senior detective would be assisting. Pasini, somethi
ng. Use to be senior dick in the 0-Nine until he transferred to Staten Island.

  Daylight came as they were searching rooftops.

  Some projects children, playing in the drifts in FDR Park, noticed the pretty red snow, the crimson liquid seeping out of an icy mound. Buried beneath was a bulky shape inside black garbage bags. A parent notified one of the uniforms on the incoming shift, who then radioed P.O. Wong.

  “Near the crossover—the overpass—park side, about Sixth Street.”

  Inside the black bags, they found a battered body, loosely wrapped in an Oakland Raiders bedsheet and a ratty comforter. At first, Wong couldn’t tell the victim was Chinese, the head and face were so beaten, beyond recognition, a pulpy mass red with blood. Black hair matted down, a corpse wearing a gray jacket stained red-black, with a hoodie attached, Timberland boots on his feet.

  His blood had found its way out of the wrapping, gravity working to stain the white flakes like a cherry snow cone.

  Wong was shaken and fatigued, but knew he’d have to manage in the following hours, and days.

  As the ME’s wagon carried the body away, he noted on his report Notify parents, positively identify body, knowing whoever was going to pick up the case would need all the information about the two gangsta perps.

  In the cold naked daylight he went back to the takeout where he found the parents still waiting behind the shuttered gates, almost hysterical, fearful of the worst. Upon seeing Wong, the mother began to cry. The father put his arm around her shoulders, and Wong said to him, “We think we’ve found him.”

  “Think?” The father took halting breaths.

  “We need you to come, to identify the . . . to make sure . . .” Wong struggled, as both parents wailed and collapsed against each other.

  Above and Beyond

  Jack dressed quietly, letting the nurses pass on their rounds.

  He knew neither perp was going anywhere. He called in a trace of the telephone number used to place the take-out orders and went straight from the Discharge Unit to the crime scene at Four-Forty-Four, walking through the slush. The rear of the projects was just as ugly in daylight. He went past the word NIGGAZ in big block letters proudly tagged in black marker across the building’s cinderblock wall. It didn’t strike him as a power word, not professing ownership of anything but self-hatred. He felt the word was just niggers with a different shine on it. It was a black thing, he’d been told; you wouldn’t understand.

  He found the super, went past the Crime Scene tape into 14D.

  Stepping carefully through the scene, he remembered the progression of events like a series of snapshots: red do-rag fronting him, the screaming hip-hop music, the pit bull coming out of nowhere. Flashes of gunfire, the racking pain, then the wild gunfight. He’d emptied his Colt. Looking back, he realized he’d been fighting off shock, trying to stay focused in those moments, blood draining from him even then.

  Everything else had been just background.

  Now, it was all background, Crime Scene Unit having been all over it, anything important to the investigation already carted away. Seeing it in daylight now, a stack of dirty plastic dishes in the sink, a half-empty sack of dog food, crushed takeout containers scattered across the floor, cockroaches all over.

  Jack knew this run-down projects apartment was typical, a haven for junkie absentee parents and illegitimate drop-out children, siblings, and cousins mixed in together in an environment of violence and drugs.

  In the bedroom, piles of dirty clothing lay on top of bare mattresses. There was a scatter of broken and stained furniture, a couple of filthy sleeping bags in the corners, jackets and boots against the wall. The place was more like a homeless encampment than a residential unit. There was a stack of fuck magazines on top of a dresser. Ghetto Bitches, BadAss Hos, Black Pussy Mamas, black girls fondling and spreading themselves for the camera. Next to the stack, a crumpled photograph of the two killas and a third youth, making gang signs, posing somewhere in one of the project’s courtyards. The one he’d shot in the chest had his hair done up in fifty-dollar cornrows, long enough to trail stiffly off the back of his neck, smiling out a mouth of gold caps, flashing CZ studs in both ears.

  The one he’d shot in the leg wore a New York Knicks cap, and an Oakland Raiders football shirt. A thick silver chain with a big cross of shiny glass chips dangled from his neck. Putting on a hard thug look for the camera.

  The third youth wore a black T- shirt tucked into a big silver belt buckle encrusted with glittery letters that spelled out the word ICE, his baggy jeans threatening to slide off his hips. Challenging the camera with his gangsta sneer.

  All three living large. Posing and fronting.

  He pocketed the photo.

  Jack noticed a foul odor coming from the bathroom. He saw an empty jug of Lysol there. From the grimy kitchen window, he could see the four lanes of the FDR Drive below, running north-south, and the overpass that spanned them, the ramp next to where they’d found the body. A high-school scholar, dumped in cold blood like a sack of garbage by the gutter. Sai m’sai, what a waste.

  Looking across the East River to the Brooklyn waterfront, to Williamsburg, he saw dilapidated docks and crumbling warehouses along the piers, camouflaged by the clean cover of snow. Garages and gritty industrial dumpsites along a graffiti-tagged and run-down shoreline. An area slowly being converted to residential lofts and low-rise condos, with pioneering urban homesteaders paving the way for the gentrification that was sure to come, the reality of realty finding its way across the river from Manhattan.

  His focus came back to the apartment. A rag in the kitchen corner. Streaks of blood along the baseboard. There was a cracked-open boom box lying on its side. He squatted down, tapped the play button. The box exploded into a hip-hop rant, angry yelling rapping blasting the small space, a homemade recording, that sounded like:

  Whup dat Chinee

  Whup dat Chinee

  Beat him down,

  Down wit da hamma,

  Beat him down!

  Thump dat yellow

  Eveebody hello!

  Slam wit da baseball

  Bat dat Chinee

  Bat dat Chinee

  Mutha-Fucka!

  Stab the blade down

  Punch it up

  Whup da Chinee

  Chop chop chop

  Thump dat yellow

  Slam dat Chinee

  Mutha-Fuck!

  Which then faded to a chorus of

  Huh huh

  Yo! Yo!

  Stunned by the lyrics, Jack hit the Stop button, and wondered if Crime Scene had bothered to play it.

  Killing chinks was fun now.

  Call it a blanket party. Yo! Yo!

  A dull throbbing pain moved down his left side. The meds wearing off.

  He pocketed the tape.

  His cell phone buzzed; they had an address. Five-Twenty-Six. Apartment 4C. One of the corner buildings.

  He left the crime scene, the icy wind dulling the pinching pain in his left chest. He took one of the uniforms with him, a veteran black officer who’d worked the regular vertical patrol before Housing and Transit were merged into one NYPD. A Community Affairs officer.

  Jack showed him the photo. “Looking for this kid, Ice,” he said.

  The cop shook his head sadly. “Tyrone. Lives with his grandma.” He broke down the kid’s story.

  Tyrone Walker, eighteen, was a punk-ass wannabe, wanting to be in with the Eastside Blunts, wear the colors. A fronting punk-ass coward. Even the Blunts could see that, playing him along, but not blooding him in, using him as a go-fer.

  Now he’d brought cop heat to the drug projects and the projects had given him up.

  Together, they dragged him out of his grandma’s apartment closet in Five-Twenty-Six, cowering in fear. They tossed him in a cab, cuffed and whimpering. When they got to the 0-Nine Jack took a Polaroid of Tyrone before putting him in a holding cell.

  Down the hall, the other perp sat cuffed to a table inside the in
terview room the cops had nicknamed “the cooler.” He was chillin’ like a villain.

  According to the notes an exhausted P.O. Wong had left on Jack’s desk, the shooter in the cooler was DaShawn Miller, eighteen, with a rap sheet that detailed his ascent of the thug ladder: early busts for loitering, drinking from an open container, turnstile-hopping, then from criminal mischief to purse-snatching, to menacing, assault, possession of controlled substances, possession with intent to sell, and now finally, gun possession and attempted murder of a New York City police officer. The investigation would be ongoing.

  The other perp, the one with the bat, who Jack had shot in the chest, was Jamal Bryant, or JB, aka Jelly Bean, also eighteen, with a juvie file that had been sealed by the court, which meant the kid had committed some heinous felony, that he was a damaged child, possibly a danger to others, a menace to society, but because of his age, the courts in their wisdom had decided he was to receive correction and rehabilitation. Following that, Jamal had had a few other beefs: shoplifting, burglary, auto theft.

  Both had dropped out of Seward Park High, and fallen into the thug life.

  Gangsta Rap

  Detective Pete Pasini, who knew the precinct, knew the Riis Houses and the thug culture that bred there, was assisting the investigation through Major Case, fielding it during Jack’s short disability. A thickset man, he had a grizzled pockmarked face, and looked more like a Mafiosi than Major Case cop.

  Jamal Bryant, with tubes sticking out of him, had given the middle finger to Pasini’s questions at Beth Israel Emergency, then immediately passed out. Tough-guy villain, Pasini had thought, leaving him with the nurse, guarded by the uniformed officer posted at his door. Fuck him, Pasini had thought, I don’t need him right now anyway. It wasn’t like he was going anywhere anytime soon.

  DaShawn Miller’s wound wasn’t serious, not life-threatening, so they’d patched him up and the uniforms took him back down into the stationhouse.